Construction mafia hold South Africa to ransom
Nala Business Chamber chief executive Ntozelizwe Mqenebe was brutally assaulted on a building site in Viljoenskroon in the Free State by three men who he alleges belong to the local construction mafia.
Four years later Mqenebe, a mechanical engineer who had visited the construction site purely on chamber business to discuss a sub-contracting dispute in 2020, says he still lives in pain after suffering spinal damage during the beating. He has had to undergo regular medical treatment for his injuries.
Mqenebe is one of many legitimate business people who have suffered at the hands of so-called business forums — the “construction mafia” — who, often armed with AK47s and other weapons, use the threat of violence to demand contracts or payments of up to 30% of the value of construction projects without doing any work.
The extortionists have now moved into the private sphere, where pensioners as well as other business sectors such as health, education and retail are targeted.
The construction mafia and extortionists were the subject of a heated debate in the National Assembly this week.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu — who outlined plans to combat the construction mafia and crimes of extortion — concurred with MPs from across the political spectrum that this is “tearing apart the fabric of society” and leaving people living in fear.
Some legislators also alleged that the police are “embedded” in the illegal activities.
According to police and City of Cape Town reports, recent victims of the construction mafia, some of which were highlighted during the debate, have included:
• City of Cape Town official Wendy Kloppers was shot 16 times and killed while conducting an inspection at the Symphony Way housing project in Delft in February 2023.
• Three construction workers were shot and wounded at the same site a week before Kloppers’ murder after the city took a tough stance on extortionists. A petrol bomb was also thrown at the site.
• A construction worker was shot and killed on the Delft Main Road construction site in May 2023.
• Stefanutti Stocks coastal manager Matthew Horwill survived an attempted murder when an armed person opened fire on him when he arrived at the construction company’s head office in Pinetown in KwaZulu-Natal in June this year.
Mqenebe said he had filed complaints with the public protector, the police, the office of the premier in the Free State and the provincial department of community safety, roads and transport regarding the attack and the prevalence of illegal business forums in the province.
But, Mqenebe said, these have mostly fallen on deaf ears.
He said the men attacked him when he went to a site to join other business chamber members at a meeting with Danie van Rensburg — who, at the time, represented the contractors, Phezulu Plant and Down Touch Investments — and Sello Bokoro, the chief engineer at the Free State transport department, to discuss the awarding of subcontracts.
Mqenebe said he and the two chamber members arrived early for the meeting and the alleged members of the illegal “Nala Business Forum” — fashioning its name after the local chamber that is affiliated to the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry — arrived 15 minutes before it was supposed to start.
Neither Van Rensburg nor Bokoro were present on site.
“While we are waiting, there comes another bakkie. It came through the security gate, with the three guys who were part of the illegal forum,” Mqenebe said.
Mqenebe said he had no idea how the men knew about the site meeting.
The two chamber members told the men that the meeting was to find out who had been awarded contracts. The men then threatened the members, who fled the scene.
“And then they went for me. They grabbed me. They called me ‘the difficult one’. They wanted to pull me out of the site office. They dragged me. My glasses fell. Then they started assaulting me with their fists, they kicked me,” Mqenebe recalled.
“They told me I’m the trouble one;
I want to take food out of their mouth, and they want to teach me a lesson today. I still live with the trauma of that incident that happened on 20 January 2020.”
Mqenebe opened a case of common assault against the three men, whose names are known to the Mail & Guardian, at the Viljoenskroon police station. But only one paid an admission-of-guilt fine, while the charges were dropped against the other two — without Mqenebe’s knowledge.
This news came as a shock to him when the police confirmed the status of the case in response to questions from the M&G on Wednesday.
Free State police spokesperson Captain Loraine Earle said three men had been charged with common assault at the building site but the cases against two of them had been withdrawn at the Viljoenskroon magistrate’s court.
“Mr Malale paid an admission-of-guilt fine of R300 on 6 July 2020,” Earle said.
Mqenebe said this “simply means someone corruptly withdrew our case”.
“In court they wanted us to amicably resolve it and we denied it. It is totally wrong that the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority] has withdrawn our case without our knowledge. I feel dumbfounded by the sentence as well,” he said.
Mqenebe said it also “pained” him that neither the Free State community safety, roads and transport department nor Phezulu Plant and Down Touch have provided him with an incident report regarding the assault, which would have enabled him to file a workman’s compensation claim with the department of labour.
Asked about the incident report this week, Van Rensburg said Mqenebe was “never employed by us or entered in any contract with us”.
“He attended a meeting with other subcontractors and was allegedly assaulted on the premises next door to our site camp,” Van Rensburg said.
Asked why the department of community safety, roads and transport had not yet investigated Mqenebe’s assault, irregular tenders and illegal business forums, spokesperson Hillary Mophethe said the department had investigated the allegations regarding illegal forums and obtained reports from its project manager, the contractor and the project steering committee.
She said Mqenebe had also been advised to open a case with the police. “In terms of sections 9 and 12 of Preferential Procurement Regulations, 2017, as well as Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPFA), 2000, which were applicable … the process of procurement of appointment of local subcontractors was in line with the legislative requirement.”
She said none of the businesses appointed were listed on the treasury’s restricted supplier database.
Mophethe said the department would not consider illegal business forums’ participation in projects.
The public protector’s spokesperson, Khulu Phasiwe, said Mqenebe’s complaint had been closed because he had not provided sufficient information about the companies contracted. “In most contracts, subcontractors are appointed by the main contractor and not by the departments. The information requested from the complainant would have enabled the PPSA [Public Protector of South Africa] to determine if in this instance the department had indeed appointed the subcontractors. There was insufficient information to refer the matter to the department or the SAPS [South African Police Service].”
But Mqenebe said he had provided the public protector with the identity numbers of his attackers and had expected that the office would have verified any links to construction companies.
The office of Free State Premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae could not be reached for comment.
Earle referred questions about Mqenebe’s report regarding the illegal forums to a national spokesperson, who had not responded by the time of publication.
In parliament this week, MPs urged the police to take strong action against extortion and the activities of the construction mafia, which Mchunu said were crimes mainly in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
He said the modus operandi in the “heinous acts” of extortion was well known. “Most of them are individuals who do not want to work but rather choose to parade as armies of murderous parasites. That must be fought and rejected by society. They are often armed, operating in groups and instil fear and chaos. The relative silence of communities and low reporting is often due to these fears.”
Mchunu said the police had clashed with extortionists in Milnerton, Cape Town, during which four suspects were killed and four were injured, while two fled the scene.
He said his department and the SAPS have signed an agreement with the City of Cape Town to fight these and other crimes and would be signing similar deals with other provincial and local governments, starting with Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal this month.